Typically, the catalytic upgrading of heavy fractions (VGO and VR) has been studied using mostly conventional supported catalysts at temperatures and pressures higher than 400 °C and 6 MPa, respectively. This work focuses on the upgrading of heavy oils at much lower severity conditions using dispersed NiWMo catalysts for processing whole oil with no fractionation. A kinetic study was developed to determine parameters from experimental data obtained at temperatures of 320À380 °C and reaction times from 3 to 70 h at a total hydrogen pressure of 3.45 MPa and a stirring speed of 500 rpm in a batch reactor. The conversion, estimated as the reduction of the residue 545 °C+ fraction, was fitted for a first-order reaction with an apparent activation energy of 200 kJ mol À1 . Two kinetic models are proposed to predict the conversion of the residue fraction and its product distribution. Comparison between experimental data and predictions using the proposed models exhibited good agreement with average absolute errors lower than 5%.
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